You should get to work if you want your business to take off.

You shuffle to the kitchen and have some breakfast, trying to delay the moment to sit in front of your computer as long as possible. You just don’t feel like it.

You think what you do is mediocre.

You’ll never be as successful as you need to be in order to make a living of your business because you’re just not that good.

Even though you’ve been living off your business for some time you still don’t believe it and think that any day now everyone will realise that you’re a fraud.

Relax, what you’re feeling is a severe attack of self-criticism.

We all carry within us a merciless critic who shows up from time to time to ruin our day.

Your inner critic is that voice in your head which prevents you from finishing those projects you most want to do because it makes you doubt yourself.

I’ve suffered myself quite a few severe attacks of self-criticism so I decided to read a lot about it and took a course where I was given some techniques to handle this shitty feeling.

If you suffer these waves of self-criticism too and they are preventing you from enjoying your venture, or simply, your life in general, stay and read.

I will share with you the best techniques I learned to handle it.

This is not cheap psychology, it’s a survival guide 😊

Here we go.

Who is your worst critic?

Yourself. Without a doubt.

Or rather that inner critic that you have inside you and who appears every time you are entering unknown territory.

Think about it.

Every time you’ve decided to step out of your comfort zone and embark on a new adventure, whether professional or personal, there’s that little squeaky voice that tells you:

– But, where are you going poor fool? Can’t you see that you won’t be able to do it?

– You are so bad at it, you can’t draw no matter how hard you try!

–  Do you call that a song? It sounds just like the beginning of the Champions League tune!

– What a shitty dialogue you’ve come up with. It sounds more fake than your brother’s girlfriend’s laughter when she laughs at his jokes.

– Who are you trying to fool with that post on Instagram? You have no fricking idea of what you are doing with your business and you think you can give advice to others, um?

That’s right.

That voice will tell you these and a thousand other niceties every time you set out to do something that challenges you.

No, you are not crazy.

And neither are you a weak person who always doubts herself.

The reality is that you are being brave by getting into the unknown and that’s why that perfidious voice shows up to make you have doubts about your abilities.

Do you know who that voice is?

That voice is made up of all those voices that once convinced you that you weren’t good enough.

Your father, when you told him you wanted to be a writer: “But my angel, that’s very difficult, study law instead so you can get a well-paid job”.

Your mother when you told her you wanted to work in London one summer: “Oh darling, but it’s so scary, London is a huge city full of crazy people”.

Your maths teacher when he said, “Go sit down Ms. de Francisco. If you go on like this, you’ll never pass the exams”.

It’s not that your parents didn’t want the best for you, they were simply projecting their own fears onto you.

They didn’t want you to step into the unknown because that would worry them (you won’t find a job, something bad will happen to you in London) and selfishly parents just want to feel peaceful.

And your math teacher… Well, there are teachers who should take an intensive course in child psychology, really…

Anyway, all that doesn’t matter anymore.

We cannot change the past or blame others for our insecurities.

Those people had no bad intentions when they said those things, and besides, they have enough dealing with their own insecurities.

The point is that your inner critic will always be within you, because she is a part of your passage through this life.

And truth be told, she actually wants to protect you.

She doesn’t want you to be disappointed again or make a fool of yourself in front of everyone, so she tries to protect you by stopping you from doing what doesn’t feel comfortable or safe.

But if you’re determined to do that thing that makes you feel alive, you need to control that voice.

Don’t fight with your inner critic, defend your point instead

The worst thing you can do is to fight with your inner critic and try to shut him up.

It won’t do any good because he will attack harder.

There is another way.

And I learnt this in a writing course I took some time ago.

We writers have to deal with our inner critic every day.

Writing is a very lonely profession and it’s very easy to doubt oneself.

You don’t see the results immediately and your creation is exposed to others’ opinions.

That’s why in this course there was a large section dedicated to this topic. Inner critics are those responsible for many good projects not seeing the light of day.

In this course, I learnt a technique that I’ve been using ever since and that always works for me.

And it’s the following.

Imagine that your inner critic is a person who looks a lot like you.

Maybe she has different hair.

Give her a name. Mine is Maria.

Draw her (no matter how good or bad you are at drawing, look at mine for god’s sake!) and write the horrible things she sometimes says to you.

Maria says these things to me:

“You’ll never be as good as such and such”

“You’ve always been a lazy bum and to succeed in this you need to work hard”

“Why do you want to be a writer? There are thousands of things you could do instead that don’t cost that much effort”

“How are you going to write in English if you’re not native?”

After having written these sentences I stop and think that Maria is just a scared little girl who is afraid of suffering and that’s why she warns me not to step out of my comfort zone.

But I do want to get out, so I talk to her with my sweetest voice so to reassure her that we’re going to be fine.

“Maria don’t be scared, I won’t get into a funk if I fail, but I want to keep going because writing is what I really want to do in life”

“I may never write like Elena Ferrante but I want to keep on writing because I enjoy it.”

“I’m not lazy, the proof is that I’ve always worked hard when I want something. I’ve got a degree in a difficult subject, I speak 5 languages and I’ve managed to run my own business.”

“I’m not native English but I can write really well in English, native people tell me so. Besides, the more I write the better I become, and since I read lots I’m learning everyday new vocabulary.” 

And then Maria calms down, she says ‘OK’ and lets me keep working.

It’s good that your inner critic exists

Having an inner critic helps you improving yourself.

If you manage to silence him when you’re creating something and let him speak up when you’re evaluating what you have done, it doesn’t have to be a negative thing.

For example, when I’m editing a text Maria helps me to see sentences that aren’t clear or metaphors that sound too cliché.

Your inner critic can help you improve a business idea by seeing its flaws so that you can correct them and come up with a better plan.

What you have to learn is to differentiate when he’s helping you to become better and when he’s stopping you from going ahead with a project that excites you.

This is the secret.

If you get along with your inner critic you can both form an invincible team.
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Conclusion

Don’t despair when you doubt yourself.

It’s normal and it happens to everyone. Even to those celebrities who seem very sure of themselves. Everyone has their own ruthless inner critic.

Make peace with her and hold her hand.

And when she is scared of failure, whisper in her ear:

“I know, it scares me too, but it’s okay. We want to do this together, if we don’t try we will never be complete. Don’t be scared, we’ll be just fine.”

Do you manage a recruitment agency and would like to stand out from the competition finding the best matches in the job market?

Does your company have a high attrition rate?

Of course, there could be many reasons for this, but there is one that is easy to fix.

Writing appealing and accurate job descriptions

COPYWRITING TO THE RESCUE

What’s copywriting?

Copywriting is writing texts aimed at an ideal customer conveying the benefits of what you offer and how those benefits will improve the customer’s life.

In this case, the job vacancy is what you offer to a prospect customer: the candidate.

I’m a copywriter specialised in international audiences and I have 8 years’ experience in managerial positions at a multinational company.

During the years I worked as a manager I interviewed at least 90 candidates.

Please, don’t get me wrong, I was not such an awful manager that I had 90 people leaving my team during those 8 years! In fact, I was involved in the recruitment process for other teams as well, since I have a Bachelor’s degree in HR and extensive experience.

via GIPHY

Sometimes the interviews didn’t go that well for very diverse reasons, but quite often the main reason was that the candidate hadn’t completely understood the job role and wasn’t, therefore, a good match at all.

I often check on Google for new opportunities for friends or just out of curiosity, and I must say that most of them depress me.

So many companies describe jobs as a kind of torture instead of an interesting opportunity to learn, grow and be part of a great company.

I know what you are thinking, there isn’t so much room for creativity when you have to be true to the nature of the job and the tasks.

Fair enough, but it doesn’t mean you have to describe the job as the most boring thing you could ever do with your time.

I’m sure that very often while you are writing a job description you are also thinking “Oh god, this sounds so boring. I would never do that job”

Exactly, that’s what candidates are thinking too!

via GIPHY

True, there are many differences between positions and different personalities, that’s why you have to carry out a throughout research first about what kind of person the hiring manager wants to work with and what exactly that kind of person is looking at when searching for jobs.

Only then can you write the perfect job description.

Writing compelling job descriptions

The opposite of writing boring job descriptions is writing super-duper cool ones that don’t mean anything at all.

I recently read a great article on the Atlantic on how America’s job listings have gone off the deep end. And, you know very well that, we, the rest of the world, copy everything that wears a Made in US label on it.

Using terms such as “data-obsessed, project-juggling digital ninja” or “online warrior” is not going to attract the best talent because, anyways, what do those things even mean?!

A job description needs to clearly state what kind of soft and hard skills are necessary to perform the job as well as setting the right expectations to avoid wasting time for both the recruiter and the candidate.

“When you say ‘coding ninja,’ you’re not going to match against ‘java developer.’ If you say ‘spreadsheet guru,’ you’re going to miss the people with ‘Excel expertise.” says Ian Siegel, the CEO of the online job marketplace ZipRecruiter.

SEO plays a big part in matching talent and companies since 70 per cent of résumés submitted via online job listings or uploaded to job boards are going to be screened by algorithms looking for keywords.

My advice here is to apply the copywriters' mantra, "don't try to be too clever with your message and cut the drivel".
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How to find the balance?

Probably you are at this point asking yourself how you can write a job description that is not too boring neither too flamboyant.

That’s a great question.

This is how I see it, you need to describe the position as if you were talking with someone face to face.

In a real conversation, you won’t use too many technical terms unless you are 200% sure the other person know what each of them means, neither you would try to sound you are quoting some hip-hop song.

Use words and expressions that everyone can understand and that describe as much as possible what’s required for the job and how is the company culture.

Another counterproductive result of using super-duper cool descriptions is that they seem to be only addressed to very young candidates.

However, if you are looking for some specific skills that aren’t easy to find, you shouldn’t restrict your search among exclusively the younger part of the population.

Which of these two job offers would you apply for?

Real job taken from JobBird:

For a well-known blue chip brand we provide low technical and RMA support on consumer electronics. Most customer queries are regarding tablets/laptops and multimedia devices.

The customer service advisor will provide excellent customer services to consumers and assist them with installations, troubleshooting and problem solving in an efficient and customer friendly manner.

We offer extensive communication and product training.

You will be working in an international, informal working environment with a personal approach. Main tasks:• Answering inbound contacts (phone, email) from customers• Troubleshooting, diagnosing and resolving any product related questions or problems• RMA handling•bla bla bla, bla, bla

Or my version of the same job offer:

I know you love electronics. You have a tablet and a laptop and you spend hours playing with them.

So why not earn money for doing it? 🙂

We are a well-known blue-chip brand (sorry we cannot tell you yet who we are but you will be able to solve the mystery very soon) and we are looking for people like you who like electronics and want to earn a good salary doing what they enjoy.

The job consists of helping customers to solve issues with their devices by phone and email. You will receive an interesting training where you will learn lots from our dynamic trainers. You can ask whatever you want and try as many products as you wish.

Yes, you will have to deal with unhappy customers sometimes since, you know, not everybody is that good at using these devices as you are, but hey, isn’t it a great feeling helping somebody else to solve an issue and be thanked afterwards?

The other great part of this job is that we all come from different countries and you will have the chance to practice those languages you are forgetting or, if you only speak one, you will have the opportunity to get to know other cultures.

We assure you that you will learn lots with this job and, who knows, you can even make friends for life!

We are really looking forward to meet you. Just send us your CV!

I know which one I would apply for. And you?

Be that company/recruiter that drives change and start writing real and eloquent job descriptions.

Contact me today and I will help you attract the best talent for your clients or for your company.

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You’ve spent many hours writing, rewriting, and rewriting once again, your CV; you also adapt it to each job offer you’re interested in and you write one cover letter after another, and nothing, not even a call for an interview.

Sometimes you think that no one needs a profile like yours, that you lack experience or that you are over qualified. You stress because you think you’ll never be able to find anything you really like.

You may have already read several articles on how to write a good resume and you are thinking “another one for the collection”. But this is not just another one, this one is different because you are going to learn how to do something very important in order to find the job of your dreams.

With this article you will learn to sell yourself. Yes, you heard me right, to sell yourself, and to do it very well.

And for that I’m going to explain to you how to apply copywriting techniques to your resume.

After all, copywriting serves to convince someone to buy something or make contact, so here it’s about convincing a company to hire you. Or at least to call you for an interview.

Copywriting also serves to stand out from the competition. Here you can use it to stand out from the other candidates.

I’ll tell you something quick about myself which is relevant for this topic.

Before deciding to write full time and started working as a freelance copywriter, I worked for 8 years in a corporation.

In those years I’ve seen, without exaggeration, at least 200 CVs and interviewed around 70 people even though I didn’t work in Human Resources but in Operations. The fact is that, either for my team or for other departments, I was often included in the selection process.

It’s very sad what I’m going to tell you, but most of the CVs and cover letters I came across were soporific. Reading them was a tedious process and if you add the fact that I always had a thousand other things to do, it got worse.

So when a few months ago I was invited to give a workshop on writing CVs I gladly accepted.

Preparing the workshop and when I was giving it, I realised that, without premeditation, one of my life’s missions was to put an end to boring and dull resumes and cover letters.

The workshop was a success, the attendees left with new ideas on how to better sell themselves and were eager to rewrite their CV to send it to companies.

Now I’m going to share with you what we saw in that workshop.

Shall we start?

We’re all in a hurry

It is the reality of current times, we read quickly and only what really interests us. And the same thing happens to recruiters.

Keep in mind that quite likely this person is not going to read your entire CV, they are going to scan it, and if they are not attracted by the information they see from the beginning, they will put it aside and will not read your cover letter.

Therefore you need to apply two very important concepts to make sure that person reads your CV: Be original and get straight to the point.

Do you know what elevator pitch is?

If you don’t know what it is, I’ll explain it to you right now:

It’s about imagining that you are in a lift with the person on whom the decision you need depends and you have to convince her that what you offer is worthwhile so that she wants to see you with more time and talk about that proposal more calmly.

In a lift you have a very limited time, just a minute or so. In your CV you are going to add your elevator pitch first of all, in the summary section. I know that many people omit this part, I really recommend to add it.

You have only about 5 or 6 lines to convince the recruiter that your proposal is worth it. In that space you have to tell him what you do, why you are the ideal person for that position and what sets you apart from other candidates.

You can also use this summary for your LinkedIn profile.

Sell Yourself

via GIPHY
To make the recruiter, who is reading dozens of CVs for the position you want, get interested in you, you have to be original.

It doesn’t matter if you are applying for a graphic designer position or you are an engineer, you have to get the attention of the person who is reading and convince her that you are the person she’s looking for.

Always try to visualize a single person and not a homogeneous mass of recruiters. Put a face to that one person, give him a name even, like copywriters do when writing for an imaginary customer; writing for one person makes the text more persuasive.

For your summary to be original and convince the recruiter that you are the perfect candidate for the role you have to apply 4 concepts.

Let’s look at each of them.

Run away from hackneyed expressions

There are certain expressions which everyone uses in their CVs that are a real pain. They are used so often that the person reading your CV skips them and doesn’t even register them; they have lost all meaning due to their excessive use.

They also make the reading process tedious and even take away the desire to live from those who are reading.

They are expressions like these:

– Responsible

– Organised

– Effective

– Motivated

– Extensive experience

– Troubleshooting

– Innovative

– Team player

– Creative

Instead of just listing those expressions that everyone uses, give examples, demonstrate and not just mention skills without adding more meat to the bone.

Really, try to avoid those words, look for synonyms or explain the same concept with more words.

Let’s see an example, instead of saying I’m responsible and a team player, you can say something like:

“I feel inspired when I’m working towards a common goal and I don’t like to leave things unfinished”.

With this phrase you are saying that you are motivated, that you like to work in a team and that you are responsible.

This is a phrase that the recruiter will read with interest because it isn’t a hackneyed expression.

You can also give examples of how you came up with a new solution to a given problem and with it you show that you are innovative; or write a very different and original summary to show that you are creative.

Let’s look at my summary as an example.

I’m a copywriter and content creator, so two of my qualities have to be creativity and versatility.

Instead of just listing those skills I say:

Bilingual Copywriter and Content creator for international and open-minded people. I write original and persuasive copy that provides businesses and professionals with a distinctive voice helping them to boost their sales.

I write about virtually anything for money.

For pleasure (and money sometimes), I write about travelling, art house films, arts exhibitions, new social trends, curious technology and digital marketing.

My writing references are Joe Sugarman, Henneke Duistermaat, Leo Tolstoy, Elena Ferrante and Josephine Hart. Just to name but a few.

Find your Unique Value Proposition

The unique value proposition is a classic and very important marketing concept. It’s about finding what makes a product or service unique.

Well, here it’s about finding and explaining what makes you unique as an individual which is directly related to what the company you want to work for needs.

Sit down and think about the qualities that make you unique, what fellow students, colleagues or relatives have told you on numerous occasions.

Perhaps your spelling is impeccable, or you express yourself very well or you always have a solution for each problem.

Don’t be afraid of showing what makes you unique.

Surely you have a lot to offer even if you don’t have a lot of work experience, think about your qualities and how to reflect them.

Let’s look at an example of a young candidate who doesn’t have a lot of work experience and is looking for his first important job.

We could write something like this:

Your differentiation factor

This term also comes from marketing, but this time it comes from content marketing.

If your unique value proposition is those qualities that make you different from other candidates, the differentiation factor is the way you do things. Or rather, how could you help the company if they decide to hire you.

Here you have to demonstrate even more, instead of just listing.

Sit down and think about what kind of problems they might have in the area where you want to work and how you could help solve them. What kind of challenges they face every day and how you can make their lives easier.

Let’s look at a different example now. This would be that of an operations manager:

Instead of using hackneyed expressions, I’ve thought about the problems the direct manager might have and explained how I’m going to help her.

The direct manager wants to work with someone that she can trust, who doesn’t need too many instructions, someone who is honest and has a solution for each problem.

Note how I have introduced some information that provoke curiosity in the reader: “One of my strong points is people management”. The reader may want to know what the other strengths are and might invite you for an interview to find out about them.

Did you note that I also used a visual metaphor? An ostrich shows that the candidate is a responsible person who doesn’t hide when things go wrong. Visual concepts adhere better to people’s minds.

Show your personal side

Talking about our personal side will bring us closer to the person who is reading. If he likes us, we’ll have a better chance of him calling us for an interview.

Almost everything in this life can be learned, but if someone’s personality doesn’t match the nature of the position or doesn’t fit in the team, there’s nothing to do.

Personality is very difficult to change and it’s what is going to determine whether that person will be happy doing that job and if she would build a good relationship with the team members.

Talk about your hobbies, what interests you in life and in what you spend your time.

Many people add this section at the end of the resume, I advise you to put it on one side or even at the beginning so that it stands out.

It is very important that the person who is going to hire you feels a connection with you, which will then be consolidated or not, during the personal interview.

Your work experience. Show instead of just listing

Your experience is the next thing the recruiter is going to read after your summary and it’s the key to deciding whether or not to call you for an interview.

As I told you before, it doesn’t matter if you don’t have a lot of experience at first, what matters is how you show what you have.

I’ve seen a lot of CVs and almost all of them can be grouped into two groups:

– Those who limit themselves to listing the main tasks of each position like in a shopping list

– Those who tell you every single detail over pages and pages

But there’s a third possibility, and this is where your CV has to be.

Don’t limit yourself to listing the tasks you did in your previous work, give examples without going into too much detail.

When giving examples concentrate on one or two only, talk about some outstanding achievement or how you helped solve a certain problem at a given moment.

Let’s look again at the example of the operations manager.

Keywords

Nowadays companies search for candidates with keywords. If these words are not included in your CV this one will not appear in the results.

Make sure you enter the keywords that appear in the job description; for example “SEO expert” or “Photoshop”, etc. You can include these words in the description of each work experience and in a list of your main skills.

Remember that it is very important to adapt your CV to each job offer.

Don’t get overwhelmed, it’s not about writing a new CV for each job, but about adapting some things to each job position, such as the most relevant work experience and the main skills.

Don’t lie, because you will end up getting caught.

Find a way to match your skills and work experience to the job you want without telling stories you can’t prove.

What you shouldn’t include

I know that nowadays it’s very easy to investigate what a person is like on social media but even so, in order to make the selection as objective as possible, I advise you not to include the following information:

– Photo

– Marital status

– Date of birth

– Nationality

If they like your CV let them find out these things in an interview, which is when you’ll have more chances of convincing them that you’re the right person.

Conclusion

Don’t be afraid to be different and challenge the status quo. In the end companies need people with new ideas who are genuine. To perform repetitive tasks we will have more and more software and artificial intelligence.

Show your most human and unique side.

By this I mean that you are free to design your CV, don’t give too much importance to the design and colours, unless you are looking for work as a designer, and concentrate on being clear and original in what you say and how you say it.

You can structure your CV in different ways but there are some basic rules.

Bonus. Video

I couldn’t finish this article without talking about videos since an increasing number of companies are asking for a presentation video to accompany the CV.

Although this means more work for you, I understand why companies ask for it, it’s a better way to get to know the candidate.

The problem is that there are companies that ask for a specific video for the position with established questions to which you must answer, so you will have to make a new video for each occasion.

However, there are other companies that ask for a generic video only.

In both cases what you can have is the script ready so that you know what you have to say and save time. You can always use that script and adapt it to the questions asked by the company in question.

To write the script take the summary of your CV as a base and then add more information, the most important thing is to be yourself and to be honest.

Don’t recite your CV, instead of listing the roles and responsibilities you have had, take the opportunity to share an experience or quality about yourself that has special relevance to the position, but is not reflected enough in your CV.

For example, in a video I watched for a position, a young candidate talked about a summer job she had as a “bike tour guide”.

The video focused on this part of her experience and, through photos and stories, showed us that she was an energetic leader capable of creating a community through a shared experience.

This can be the structure of your video:

• Introduce yourself and briefly explain what you do
• Talk about why you are interested in that particular position and company (for adapted videos)
• Explain why you are perfect for the position (add your Unique Value Proposition and Differentiation Factor, focus on an example)
• Talk a little bit about your hobbies
• Try to sound natural, being a little nervous is fine, but you have to try to relax. Imagine you’re talking to a friend
• Be yourself.

Here there is a very original video, you don’t need to copy this example literally, but you can take notes and inspire yourself to make yours.

The tone depends on your personality, don’t try to be who you’re not.

I sincerely hope this article has inspired you to write a remarkable CV and get the job of your dreams.

Tell me about your experiences, I can’t wait to hear them 😊